Game 37974: petermock, Henry's Cat in 'Escort'
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- I forgot about VP's in all the excitement!
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?
Posted by
xeno 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- Very apt! The other losing count concept I like is in For a Few Dollars More. At the end of the film there is one bad guy left. Clint Eastwood is having trouble adding up the bodies that is until he shoots the him. Lee Van Cleef is good too. Lots of to tongue and cheek one upmanship lines.
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- My favourite of Sergio Leone's trilogy, A Few Dollars More. We clearly grew up loving the same films. But who couldn't from our generation. Beats the pants off most of the stuff today. The era of remakes, because they struggle to come up with anything as good. There are exceptions, but their continual remakes prove the rule.
Posted by
xeno 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- I agree. A hidden gem. Humour and tragedy run through the whole film. The gunmanship scenes shooting their hats and fruit off the trees are funny as is the short prudish hotel manager with the tall big booby 'dirty' wife. Characters sre deliberately over the top. I like The Good, the bad and the ugly too but For a Few Dollars More is special quirky work of genius. It's even got Klaus Kinski as the hunchback.
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- I tire of contemporary remakes. Though in Sergio's time his remake of Yojimbo aka Fist Full of Dollars is the weakest of the films. Still a respectful effort. Then Akira Kurosowas Yojimbo and Seven Samurai were influenced greatly by John Ford's westerns. I think the difference in the past theirs was a passionate respectful expression to learn from their inspirational influences. Our eras remake phenomenon is generally about a quick cheap lazy (safe bet) money making concern. It's not the film makers so much as those that have the power in the film industry.
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- Agree with everything there Pete. I think film makers have fallen into the green revolution: anything worth anything should be recycled.
The Spaghetti Western was always a caricature of what the real West was like, taking it too the extreme. I remember some critic saying many years ago that it wasn't the real West but how modern audiences wanted to view it.
Now you have political correctness, social/historical revisionism coming into play with the insertion of black and female leads. Black gunfighters and female ones. That was extremely rare indeed, but now being made commonplace to appeal to an ethnic and female audience. Or more accuarately the PC Ayatollahs airbrushing them in to reinforce modern day multiculturalism and equality. The Soviets were masters at this in cinema. Posted by
xeno 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- To, not too.
But look at Denzil Washington playing Chris in the new Magnificent Seven film. Great actor but come on! I have studied the West since my Dad's Time Life leather bound series of books on it as a kid, and besides many other documentaries, Ken Burns' in particular. Posted by
xeno 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- Excuse my grammatical errors.
Ken Burns' American Civil War documentary series is superb also.
We are all sleep walking into a 'liberal' 'utopia' that is a contrived naive ideological myth. I'm a true liberal and today's card carrying ones are charlatans. Posted by
xeno 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- I suppose every era has it's own take on a genre. I care about truth and athenticity and agree about what you day about the Spaghetti Western being an extreme characterization. The modern problem you pointed out about ethnic gunslingers is fair enough. I am sure there were outlaws of various etnicity but the gunslinger were a very rare breed popularised in their own time by the press, word of mouth/rumour/reputation and part fictional literature. I think the Spagetti Western got away with its extremism because it was self aware of is own ridiculousness and even used it for comic intervals. The modern deviation from truth doesn't address its own altered position. The possible wrong gender or ethnicity of a character is plonked before you and because the actor/actrees is a famous star are you meant to accept it at face value because the film industry expects you to like them and take the situation without question. Its probably why nearly film relies on famous actors, half of the work is done. I find it very refreshing to see a film with new and unknown actors. I used to like watching Australian films because the actors were scruffy, displayed more human failings and less star obsessed. Getting back to Westerns, someting as ridiculous as the modern PC issue is in the 50's men having styled quiffy short back and sides hair and woman wearing pointy bras/heavy make up etc. In The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Tuco takes a real piss in the morning after the bridge battle. The camera is behind him but it is clear what he is doing and Clint Eastwood's face confirms his understated disgust.
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- Black gunslingers would have been publicised as a novelty. But I never come across any. There may have been some but they would have been a real rarity. We are talking about the South here. Even after 1865 they were treated as inferior there; even by many in the South in 1965! Racism was rife.
Yes in the 1940's,and 1950's there was a conservatism in Westerns but that was nearer the truth. Wyatt Herp died in the 1920's and his memoirs recount that the West was rather conservative in nature and even gunfighters made an effort to look clean and tidy and more so. Billy Kid was rather scruffy but still wanted to look somewhat respectable.
Hollywood is today is being very politically correct and guilty of historical revisionism for modern social ideological reasons. I don't mind the Spaghetti Westerns because they have no ideological agenda, just pushing the boundaries and creating an exaggerated caricature for entertainment. Posted by
xeno 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- Have you seen the Hateful Eight? How does that sit with you? I half liked it but I see it purely as a Tarantino film and the genre take is just a one off project. I think if you take on a genre and to do it justice you have to make more than one film.
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- I take your point about the 40's and 50's. I guess I find the modern fashions a bit silly at times but there were portrayals of many truths. Though those were white idealizations too with 40s/50s politicial/socialogical issues embedded within the films. But the general way of life was portrayed well.
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- You had a conformist conservatism for decades and in the 60's most noticeably a social rebellion against it. Now paradoxically you have a 'liberal' yet conformist ideology that stands against it but is mearly the opposite side of the coin.
I'm a genuine centrist and can see the similarities in both. Posted by
xeno 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- The Hateful Eight I hatefully detested. A boring self indulgent mess that dragged on for nearly 3 hours. It came alive for about half an hour near the end and then just became a Western version of Reservoir Dogs. I laughed and groaned in equal measure when Samuel L Jackson suddenly turned into Miss Marple.
Posted by
xeno 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- We have something similar in the at world. Starting with Impressionism and going most of the way through Moderism the artist made work that was seen as revolutionary and valued for their creativity and breaking taboos rules etc etc. The work was genuinely shocking to conservative society. Now with contemporary art the shocking aspects are still valued but it can be formulaic and the shock tactic has become over used, narrow and without much content. To do something original and ground breaking is quite likely to go unnoticed as it won't be recognised as truly sucessfully creative as it wouldn't fit in to accepted current notions. Fortunately there are many ways around stiff narrow thinking. You can initially slip your work under the radar. Trojan Horse is one method...
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- I didn't like Inglorious Bastards much either. His work seems to have become more self indulgent if that is possible. I don't think he can handle the subject matter.
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- at = art world!
Posted by
petermock 7 years ago [Login to reply]
- Yes what a load of tosh that was. First 20 minutes looked promising then it descended into comic book.
That is the only style of film making he knows how to do. Violent self indulgent over the top comic book. That worked in the 90's with the crime genre but he uses it for every subject matter. One trick pony. Posted by
xeno 7 years ago [Login to reply]
This topic has now been closed.